During the years of the Commonwealth Lord Ormonde had resided abroad, stanchly faithful to the discredited cause of the Stuarts. When others grew faint-hearted, and deserted, Ormonde spoke the encouraging word, and he spent all his revenues in the royal service. Recalling a promise made by Cromwell that his wife's fortune would not be confiscated, he sent her to the Protector, and she succeeded in getting five hundred pounds in cash and two thousand a year for life. In 1658, six years after his wife's visit, Ormonde entered {95} England disguised, charged with a mission from the Royalist party to ascertain if the times were rife for a rising. The ex-viceroy returned with a pessimistic report, and on his advice Charles waited. Two years later came the Restoration, and with it Ormonde's fortunes rose to a dazzling height. In the first flush of gratitude King Charles showered honours upon the Irish nobleman. He was created Duke of Ormonde in the Irish peerage, Earl of Brecknock in the English, appointed Chancellor of Dublin University, Lord Steward, Lord-Lieutenant of Somerset, and High Steward of Kingston, Westminster, and Bristol. At the coronation of Charles II. he carried the crown. The restoration of his Irish estates followed as a matter of course, and the king added a promise to pay him a large sum of money. This promise was never kept, but the Irish Parliament, anxious to curry favour with Ormonde and the king, voted him thirty thousand pounds. At the close of his career Ormonde declared that he had spent nearly a million of money in the king's service, and although this is an obvious exaggeration, yet it is a fact that he lost heavily pecuniarily and otherwise by his adherence to the Stuart cause. Ultra-patriotic writers, with that passion for obscure data which characterizes the partisan historian in his search of an argument, have chosen to regard the first Duke of Ormonde as the friend of England and the enemy of Ireland. They shed inky tears over the fate of men like Hugh O'Neill and Shane of that family, but the {96} success of either of these would have meant a return to the absurd state of affairs which made Ireland a nation of kingdoms and traitors. O'Neill represented only his own followers, and his success would have bred rivals and imitators. There was no hope of peace or prosperity if the country came under the dominion of men brave on the battlefield and foolish and quarrelsome in their councils. Mere bravery is not statesmanship; victories on the battlefield have to be supported by wisdom in the council, or all their benefits are lost. [Sidenote: Ormonde and Lady Castlemaine]